Our interview with author and journalist Laura Stevens
Laura Stevens won the inaugural award of Comedy Women in Print in 2019
A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to interview award-winning author Laura Stevens about her novel The Exact Opposite of Okay, which is featured on our 3rd year module Contemporary Writing. Here are her answers to our questions.
What got you started with writing?
I've always been a huge book nerd – think Matilda going to the library every day with her little trolley – and I started trying to write my own stories when I was six or seven. I never had the attention span to finish, but the inclination was definitely there from a young age!
Where do you think your inclination towards Young Adult and Feminist Fiction comes from?
I love how open the YA space is to pushing boundaries. I think our corner of the industry is really at the forefront of big conversations – some that adult fiction can be more closed off to.
Izzy’s voice is engaging, compelling, confident and consistent throughout the novel. How did she come to you?
Fully formed. I was vaguely worried I required an exorcism. Seriously, though, she does just feel like an extension of myself at this point. I think she's like a caricature of me – as though someone plugged all of my personality traits into an amplifier.
Why is it set in America?
See above! I can't really explain it, but Izzy came to me as an American teenager and I never questioned it. A lot of my favourite female comedians are American, and I watch so much American comedy on TV, that it just felt natural to give this particular protagonist that kind of voice. Plus from a practical plot standpoint, revenge porn is (rightly) illegal in the UK. I didn't want the book to be about the legal ramifications of the leaked nudes, but more about the emotional and psychological impact, so I opted to set it in a state where revenge porn was unregulated.
Some say comedy is a personal thing. Did you worry about readers not finding the book funny?
Comedy is so subjective; you're never going to please everyone. But that's true of all writing. If you worried about it, you'd never get a single word written. Comedy is particularly hard because nobody likes the feeling of cracking a joke and having nobody laugh, but that's why I write books instead of performing stand-up. The immediacy of the embarrassment is removed. Providing I don't check my reviews, I'll never really know who laughed and who didn't. That's pretty freeing! And probably why I'm funnier in writing than in real life. The fear factor isn't there.
Which comic novelists are your favourites?
It's actually non-fiction, but Adam Kay's This Is Going To Hurt is the funniest book I've ever read. It's everything I want my writing to be – sharp, poignant, political, bizarre. You'll be crying with laughter on one page, then with sadness or anger on the next. It takes a rare level of skill to be able to do that.
There’s an interesting balance between the horrors of life and its comedic moments in your novel. How did you go about combining comedy with drama?
This sounds incredibly pretentious, but when I'm writing, I like to use every colour in the emotional colour wheel, and I like to mix them in interesting ways to see what kind of effects I can create. I love showing a character go from happiness to anger lightning fast, or feeling pride and jealousy at the same time, or crying in a seemingly innocuous scenario. When you throw humour into the mix, the effect is even richer. It's not easy, and you have to be careful not to overload the reader, or create reactions or situations that seem disingenuous or unbelievable. I don't get it right all the time, but I love attempting that balancing act.
The Exact Opposite of Okay has us wringing our minds in empathy with Izzy. Why was it important to write about shame?
I find shame to be such an interesting, deeply layered emotion, and also a very political one. All the ways the world wants you to feel shame very much depend on who you are. It's such a rich seam to mine, and I don't think I'll ever stop writing about it.
You are 2019’s winner of the Comedy Women in Print Prize. Did you know your publishers had submitted the novel for the prize?
I did know! But I thought it was such a ridiculous long shot that I promptly forgot about it. The longlist email nearly sent me into cardiac arrest.
How did winning CWIP change your writing life?
Without diving too deep into my mental and emotional state, it was a level of validation I so desperately needed. I'd just found out I was pregnant, and I was feeling a little forgotten by the industry, and it was so easy to tell myself that my career was dying (or at the very least stagnating). I can't really describe how it felt to be handed that trophy and told that my work was actually worth something. It gave me the drive to keep going when I was exhausted in every conceivable way.
A Girl Called Shameless is out, sequel to The Exact Opposite of Okay. What can readers expect from Izzy’s new adventures?
Izzy and co attempt to tackle their state's abysmal lack of legislation surrounding revenge porn. There's political rage and inappropriate humour in equal measure.
Do you have any advice for our writers?
Have fun. I feel like that isn't said enough, but for me it was the key to everything. Before TEOOO, I was struggling to sell books, and everything I wrote felt flat and derivative. It was only once I decided to just have fun with my work that Izzy came to me – and she changed everything! So let go, experiment, and try not to take it all too seriously. Nothing stifles creativity faster than putting too much pressure on yourself.
Many thanks for answering our questions!
Congratulations to Laura, who recently became a mother. You can keep up with her work here and follow her on twitter here.
by FalWriting